"Orcs, Dragons and Bears! Oh my!" is the seventh episode of High Rollers.
- Previous episode: "The Battle for Tallfield!"
- Next Episode: "Jiǔtóu's Solo Adventure!"
Guided by the older elf that had allowed them entrance, Cam, Elora and Trellimar arrive at the Spire of Endless Autumn's main tower and are led inside. They are showed into a central chamber with a large spiralling spaircase, which they ascend, eventually reaching a floor with an oval-shaped gate made out of stone. Tired, Cam complains about going up more stairs, but the elf assuages him they will reach the upper reaches of the tower using other methods. The cleric is slightly annoyed when he is addressed simply as "human", so he introduces himself. The elf responds in kind, telling them his name is Amris.
Using a magical password of sorts, Amris activates the gate, which will transport them to the top floor; Cam is wary, so Elora goes through first to demonstrate. The cleric starts to poke Duracell through the gate, causing Elora, who is now on the other side, to grab it and pull it through. Cam then jumps through, followed by Trellimar and the elven guards watching him. They find themselves in an antechamber, where a stern-looking elven woman and several advisers are gathered around a table, poring over maps. Amris steps through and, after closing the gate, gets the woman's attention.
Commander Payla, as she is called, immediately shows distrust towards Trellimar and belittles Elora's attempts at defending him. She turns towards Amris, who updates her on the situation with the orcs and mentions that her lieutenant is due to arrive shortly from their scouting mission. Payla believes they should wait and have their enemies reveal the source of their strange abilities, following which the elves would strike. Elora fills the commander in on their reason for coming to the region, mentioning the Green Hunter that supposedly leads the orcs. At this, Payla says the trio should probably stay in the tower, while the elves deal with the orcs, which causes Cam to object. He starts squabbling with her, saying they can help on the front lines, but the commander is not convinced.
She continues, saying that some power is preventing them from returning the spire to the Feywild, with Amris speculating that it might be the doing of an orc shaman. When Elora mentions that they've gotten their information from a fae spirit with the body of a deer and the torso of a woman however they get interested; stating that it must have been a very old fae spirit of life that people only often find when they have great need of her help, which would be consistent with their tale of having a friend who was in dire need of help. Once again, Cam makes an appeal to Payla stating that they need only have a few of the elven guards walk them to the edge of the orcish territory to settle their minds about Trellimar whom they still do not trust and would rather keep in the spire under lock and key. While Payla acknowledges they might be able to do something about this Green Hunter, she still doesn't believe they can evade capture and is afraid they would give away information useful to the orcs if they were. Impatient, Trellimar casts Suggestion but it backfires as not only does Payla shake it off but the casting is immediately obvious and suddenly the guards around the drow have their swords to his neck.
Payla orders Trellimar to be cuffed and taken to the cells, and the drow doesn't try to resist as he realises that he's messed up any progress that Elora and Cam might have just made. Cam tries to headbutt one of the guards to defend his companion but the guard is ready and throws Cam over his shoulder and onto a table, leading to two more grabbing hold of the human and Cam is similarly ordered to be cuffed and taken away to the cells. Elora tries one last time to appeal to Payla, saying that without doing the mission they cannot restore their friend, but Payla assures Elora that she is a guest but shall not leave the spire. If the elven army recovers the Horn, they will be free to take it and Elora can leave the spire with Cam but not Trellimar. At this, both Amris and Payla leave to speak with the Queen while Elora accompanies her companions not wishing to be separated.
Before they can leave though, there is a female cry from the double doors they have left through and a flash of green energy in the room. Two orcs appear next to the guards who were activating the portal, and slice their throats. Elora acts first, shouting at the guards holding Trell to unshackle him before changing into a Bear form and leaping upon one of the orcs with a bite, tearing his throat out with her claws and immediately killing him. Cam moves away from the guard who was holding him, attempting to break Trellimar's manacle chains with his dagger but only manages to gouge the iron. Trellimar manages to acrobatically leap and bring his legs past the chain to get his hands in front of him, but the restriction means that he has trouble summoning his Eldritch Blast and his target dodges out of the way in time. The orc in response moves forward with his two axes to attack, missing with the first but scoring a critical hit on Trell, slicing across his throat.
The guards spring into action, with one coming forward with his sword to attack the orc and another spinning Trellimar around to undo his chains on Elora's orders, although he gives the drow a look to warn him not to try anything funny. The attacking guard has his slash blocked by the orc's double axes and thrown aside, and the sounds of a battle becomes clear from beyond the double doors. Elora chooses to focus on the remaining orc first, missing with the bite but hitting with a claw attack and shredding the orc's chest. At this point the portal flares into life, with a female elven form emerging accompanied by an owl: Torwen. She observes the chaos of the scene and quips that they know how to throw a party, before running forward with her scimitars and taking the unaware orc's head off in one swipe.
Elora nuzzles Torwen as thanks, while Cam goes over to Trellimar and uses Healing Word by placing his hand over the drow's face. Trellimar decides to kick open the double doors, although it doesn't quite open as smoothly as he'd wanted. Inside, there is a frantic battle. A number of orcs are inside, with one seemingly casting a green portal through which more orcs are coming. Payla is surrounded by 2-3 orcs, fighting all of them at the same time and Amris is situated at the back of the room, casting an orb of semi-translucent energy around himself and a regal looking elf woman wearing what Elora recognises as a Crown of Authority. Trellimar fires his Eldritch Blast at the staff of the orc holding the portal open, but it is fended off by a magical shield. The orcs turn to the new arrivals and the orc casting the portal orders that they be killed quickly so they can kill the elven Queen. Two orcs without tattoos engage Trell and one with the tattoos teleports to position itself next to Cam while other orcs begin to move about the room.
The two orcs on Trell both attack, with the drow easily dodging the first but not seeing the second until its too late and taking an attack to the arm. The one on Cam also attacks, but Cam blocks the blows with a dagger in each of his hands. Further into the room Payla is still fighting, but every now and then she cannot block an incoming blow and it is obvious that she is getting tired. Behind her Amris is also beginning to get tired. The two guards from the corridor move forward to engage the orcs as well, as Payla begins to strike back against the orcs. She manages to hook one of the axes, flinging it across the room and knocking the weapon out of the hand of another. Torwen orders her guards to her but the guards are busy, so she moves forward herself to attack, shoving Trellimar out of the way slightly. She swings her blades and again manages to take one out, but the second one catches on and blocks the sword coming for him with his axe. Elora moves towards an orc in the doorway, taking an axe to the shoulder for her trouble but attacks with a bite, tearing off limbs and killing him from the blood loss. Cam reacts to the orc near him by dropping his daggers and pulling out the enchanted mace he received from the elven tomb a while back. Although he misses, not being used to such a heavy weapon, he uses its magical ability to broadcast his voice in a "public service announcement" to let the elves outside the tower know that their Queen is under attack.
Trellimar runs into the room and jumps onto the table in the centre, getting a better angle from which to once again attempt his Eldritch Blast against the orc casting the portal. This time he hits. It leaves a scorch mark across the orc's chest, badly injuring him and he orders the orcs to attack Trell. Three more orcs arrive through the portal, one climbing up to the table just as the portal finally fades out of existence. The shaman decides to give Trell a taste of his own medicine and Eldritch Blasts him back, knocking Trell down to unconscious again. Just before he passes out the drow once again invokes Hellish Rebuke, which leaves the orc shaman barely clinging to life. Payla meanwhile manages to finally dispatch one of the orcs surrounding her by stabbing it through the throat. The orcs move around and the one on Cam attacks him, getting a hit. One of the guardsmen is dispatched by his orcish opponent and then the orcs engage Elora, the first stumbling out of position as he attacks allowing an easy dodge while the other just manages to embed his axe slightly into the fur of her chest. The remaining guardsman moves past Elora to attack the stumbling orc, but misses just as badly. Torwen then engages the orc which just killed a guardsman, taking him out with two swipes from her scimitars. The shaman then orders she be the priority target as she is strong. Elora quickly takes out another orc with a bite before clawing at the orc who stumbled, also killing him.
Seeing that Trellimar has collapsed, Cam backflips away from his stunned opponent and casts Spare the Dying on the drow to stabilise him before casting Healing Word and bringing him back to consciousness and the fight. Immediately, Trellimar gets up and casts a final Eldritch Blast at the shaman, finishing him off. At this the remaining orcs decide that they will take as many people with them as they can before they die, and they begin closing in on any nearby opponent. Elora takes two blows from the orc Cam was previously engaged with, Trellimar is almost knocked out again, Cam takes a gash to the wrist, and Torwen receives a slight nick from one orc before she parries another away. Torwen removes both her opponents from the fight with two well-executed slashes and Elora another through ripping the orc to shreds with claw and tooth. Cam manages to use his mace to smash another one out of the fight, although he promptly drops it out of disgust afterwards. Trellimar tries to aid Peyla by shooting a blast at her opponent, but he misses smashing the wall hangings instead; fortunately Peyla herself is able to land two good blows upon the orc as well as parrying its attacks. The other surviving orc makes attacks against Torwen and Elora, hitting both. Torwen then commands her owl, who has been in the rafters the entire battle to attack the orc on Peyla while she herself lands another blow upon the orc in front of her.
Elora's wounds slow her movement meaning that her attacks miss, and when Cam decides to leap over her to make his assault he misjudges her size and sprawls onto her back before rolling off prone in front of the orc. He still makes an attack though, aiming his danger in a very sensitive area and taking it out. Trellimar then gets back onto the table to attempt to leap onto the back of the last orc with his shortsword but his foot slips on a map and he falls. Despite this he still connects with an attack, splitting the orc in two.
With the battle over, they take time to gather themselves and Torwen shares some intel that she has gained through her scouting; namely that the orcs seem to have access to fae magicks and it feels weird and unnatural to her. Before any concrete plans can be made a projectile bursts forth from an orb around the dead shaman's neck, and an illusion of the orc leader stands before them. He is able to hear them speak but not see anything around him and gives his demands to the assembled party - either the elves leave the spire for the orcs to take as their new base, or he will send more troops inside the spire and slaughter everyone where they stand. When the message is delivered Cam and Amris do Arcana checks and Cam realises that the orb only broadcasts one-way, but he still breaks it to be sure that any plans they make cannot be heard by the enemy. They eventually settle on letting the three heroes plus Torwen, the spire's best scout, go back towards the orc camp to scout more and see what they can discover. Amris hands Trellimar a scroll that he can use to send a message if they find anything that would require the spire's armies. It is also noted that during Torwen's last scouting mission she found a magical rope hanging from a tree, to which Trellimar angrily exclaims "That's my rope!" Torwen refuses to hand it over though. Trellimar does suddenly realise that something in his bag is glowing and cracking though and opens it to find a newly-hatched pseudo-dragon he names Granamyr.
They move outside and are supplied by the elves during a rest period of an hour, gaining a week's travel rations each and Cam replaces one of his old daggers with an ornate elven-crafted one which he proceeds to name "Elfy" to Torwen's confusion. When they move off they do so silently for the most part, with Torwen being right at home in her natural element, Cam and Trell not doing too badly either but Elora is distracted by cute animals along the way causing Torwen to roll her eyes. The group talks about what their plan of action is, debating whether to head to the camp immediately or maybe seek fae beings who could possibly be their allies. Cam also keeps an eye on Trell's new pseudo-dragon who continues to sit on the shoulder of the drow, looking around him and occasionally snarling at sounds. Torwen manages to see signs that other beings have passed by; orcs, other elven scouts, faint sprite dust, and some cloven hoofprints that are too big to be deer and probably belong to something fae. As Towen informs the group of this she points out one of her other scouts, Legolas, nearby. She also uses her Primeval Sense to sense that while there is sign of fae nearby and while there is a little to the west, the majority of it is coming from the direction of the camp to the north and seems wrong in some way, corrupted almost. They decide to head west as they don't yet feel ready to approach the camp, especially with the almost-fae energy presence near it.
They eventually begin to find themselves in a part of the forest which, while quiet and peaceful, feels cold and empty. Emerging into a place where the trees thin, they take shelter behind a fallen tree at the sounds of an orc and whimpering. Across the brook, they can see some orcs smashing small leaf houses under the command of another orc sat atop a large wolf-like beast, while small groups of pixies flee the destruction. Cam makes the suggestion that they use the fact they've not yet been seen to attempt to flank the orcs, to which Torwen agrees. The autumn spire elf moves over to a nearby tree and like shadow silently scales the trunk to hide within the leaves. Cam moves to the right, hiding by a large tree next to the brook while Elora moves forward to hide behind the tree Torwen is up.
Trell decides to instead stay put and send Granamyr to attack, telling the pseudo-dragon to aim for the riding orc. Granamyr manages to stay undetected by the orc and stings the green-skinned humanoid, but the direwolf senses the pseudo-dragon at the last moment and turns to gnash at Granamyr. Trell sends an Eldritch Blast towards the orc rider from his position behind the fallen tree, causing the rider to point him out to the other two orcs and Trell ducks behind another tree to his left to try and get cover. Granamyr attempts another attack on the orc rider, but his tiny fangs can't break past the metal plates of its armour. Torwen sends her owl into also attack the rider, but the bird has the same problem as Granamyr getting past the armour. Torwen descends the tree quietly and darts across the brook to hide behind another smaller tree, with the direwolf sniffing in her direction but the unaware orcs don't seem to spot her despite this. Elora decides to attack the direwolf, using her hidden position to shoot an arrow at the beast who howls in pain as it connects. She ducks back behind the tree, as Cam moves silently across the brook to hide in some trees next to the orcs and throws a dagger at the nearest one which connects but unfortunately gives away his position. The orcs then react, the one he attacked pushing into the trees after Cam, one engaging the 'pets' and the rider choosing to focus Trell as the biggest threat which allows both the 'pets' to make attacks as he pushes past with Granamyr managing to tear a small chunk of flesh out of the orc's neck with a bite. Cam gets hit with an attack, Trell gets bitten by the direwolf and forced by a spell to grovel in front of the rider orc, but Granamyr manages to get enough height to avoid being hit. At this time Torwen and Cam both notice the pixies have stopped fleeing and are curiously watching the battle.
Trell stands up from his prone position and stabs his shortsword into the direwolf's jaw which only seems to enrage it. Granamyr bites the orc who tried to attack him, before Torwen manages to stealth out behind the same orc and slit his throat with her scimitar which gains tiny applause from the watching pixies. Elora goes bear and runs up to the rider orc, direwolf and Trell, attacking the rider with the bite not breaking through the armour but the claw catching him. Cam stabs the orc engaging him twice, and the orc retaliates catching the cleric with another heavy axe blow. The orc rider summons a spectral spear that hits Elora twice and the direwolf manages to drag the bear form down prone with another attack. Trell casts Arms of Hadar, catching both the rider and the direwolf although the direwolf resists some of its effects. Granamyr, no longer under threat himself, flies back towards Trellimar and attacks the orc rider again. Torwen, seeing she is too far away to engage any of the opponents left instead persuades some of the pixies to help them by acting as a distraction for the rider. After they agree she runs back across the brook towards the rider, recalling her owl as she does. Elora stands and again goes for a double attack on the rider, bite once again failing but the claw hitting true, and the rider seems to be badly wounded at this point. Cam meanwhile finishes the orc on him with a dagger to each temple of the head and he too begins to run towards where the rider is. The rider once again casts a spell to suggest Elora 'flee' and she fails to save, while the direwolf tears into Trellimar knocking him out. The pixies then dazzle the rider and Torwen arrives with a leap, spearing her scimitar through the rider's back and out his front killing him. As the direwolf turns with a snarl she uses her second scimitar to cut up its flank. With the rider dead, both the spectral weapon as well as the suggestion both vanish, but Elora still only connects with a claw attack because of the pixies' distraction. Fortunately as she is so angry, the claws rip the other beast to shreds. Finally Cam, still running over, heals the drow with Healing Word and gets Trellimar up again.
The battle at an end, the pixies thank the party for stopping the destruction of their homes saying that the orcs have been killing animals and even themselves. When Torwen suggests that they aid the party against the orcs though, the pixies protest that they are too small to be of any help. Torwen and Elora both try to persuade them and eventually a few reluctantly agree to come with them and maybe provide a distraction again, with some lightening up the moment they see Torwen's owl. The party agrees to take a short rest before carrying onto the camp, and Cam tries a new spell - Aid. He does an unnecessary dance and his hair once again starts glowing, although not quite as brightly as Elora and Trell have previously seen.
